Asymmetric catalysis is the most efficient method for the generation of products with high enantiomeric purity, as the asymmetry of the catalyst is multiplied many times over in the generation of the chiral product. These chiral products have found numerous applications as building blocks for single enantiomer pharmaceuticals as well as in some agrochemicals. The asymmetric catalysts employed can be enzymatic or synthetic in nature. The latter types of catalyst have much greater promise than the former due to much greater latitude of applicable reaction types. Synthetic asymmetric catalysts are usually composed of a metal reaction center surrounded by an organic ligand. The ligand usually is generated in high enantiomeric purity, and is the agent inducing the asymmetry. A prototypical reaction using these types of catalyst is the asymmetric hydrogenation of enamides to afford amino-acid derivatives (Ohkuma, T.; Kitamura, M.; Noyori, R. In Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis, 2nd ed.; Ojima, I., Ed.; Wiley-VCH: New York, 2000; pp. 1–17).
Although the preparation of enamides through Horner-Emmons Wittig chemistry is known, the preparation and use of substrates such as lactam-substituted 2-propenoic acid derivatives which possess a fully substituted nitrogen on the enamide are not known and the viability of the standard preparative sequence for the enamide is unclear. In general, the majority of enamides that have undergone asymmetric hydrogenation possess a hydrogen substituent on the nitrogen of the enamide. Thus the efficacy of asymmetric catalysts for the hydrogenation of lactam-substituted 2-propenoic acid derivatives is also unclear.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,943 discloses the synthesis of single enantiomer lactam-substituted propanoic acid derivatives useful as pharmaceutical agents for various conditions. However, these compounds were prepared by a cyclization reaction and not by the asymmetric hydrogenation of an enamide.
In light of the above, it would be desirable to produce single enantiomer lactam-substituted propanoic acid derivatives useful as pharmaceutical compounds.